Home Critic's Corner

Discuss a review. Provide constructive feedback. Talk to the industry.

[ Follow Ups ] [ Post Followup ] Thread: [ Display  All  Email ] [ Critic's Corner ]
[ Alert Moderator ]

RE: Perhaps right, definitely partially wrong.

> > Who's JH? < <

Julian Hirsch.

The greatest solid-state circuit designer of all time (IMO) has been John Curl. A severely underrated designer (mostly of tube gear) was the late Allen Wright. Another great solid-state designer is Ed Feucht, but he designed circuits for Tektronix oscilloscopes. Earlier desighers of solid state who did at least a few original things were Marshall Leach of GIT, and Bart Locanthi of JBL. Bill Johnson did some amazingly interesting tube circuits, while almost everyone else has just copied things from the '50s (David Hafler, Frank McIntosh, and Sidney Smith of Marantz). Most of the really interesting tube circuits were done in the '30s and '40s and can be seen in a military handbook published by MIT (I think) towards the end of WW2.

For louspeakers, Laurance Dickie and Andrew Jones are interesting designers. (I'm unsure what Jones' philosophy is since leaving TAD, as his designs for Elac are universally praised but don't seem to offer any specific new technology.) The high-end wouldn't be where it is today without the contributions of Jim Thiel and Richard Vandersteen. I don't know the name of the RTR electrostatic designer, but he did the KLH 9, the Infinity Servo Statik panels, and many more. Richard (?) Janszen and Peter Walker were the first to commercialize the constant-charge push-pull ISL's described by Frederick V. Hunt in his 1954 book, Electro-Acoustics. I'm completely unimpressed by Walker's ESL-63 with the (resonant) delay lines used to create a simulated point source. MIT graduate student Charles Malme made a far more elegant design in 1958 that accomplished much the same thing is a simpler, better sounding technique. (Some say that was the real reason the ESL-63 took so long - Walker was trying to side-step Malme's patent. Unfortunately Malme is unknown today. The AES ignored him completely in the "Speaker Anthology" series, and Acoustat stole his idea when the patent expired for their swan song before going out of business in their "Spectra" model.

Then there were the earlier giants - Bart Locanthi, James B. Lansing and Harry Olson. And that is pretty much just the US high-end industry. There are many innovators from Japan especially of whom I know almost nothing. Most people have no idea who the real innovators are or were. They just buy the "latest" gear with the flashiest features.

I'm more interested not in a designer that made a few nice models, but people who actually changed the way other designers approach the subject. There are plenty of people who made a name for themselves by focusing on one aspect of design and taking that to and extreme, but that miss huge swaths of the overall picture. To me, they are not great designers. YMMV.

This post is made possible by the generous support of people like you and our sponsors:
  VH Audio  

Follow Ups Full Thread
Follow Ups
FAQ

Post a Message!

 Forgot Password?
Moniker (Username):
Password (Optional):
  Remember my Moniker & Password  (What's this?)    Eat Me
E-Mail (Optional):
Subject:
Message:   (Posts are subject to Content Rules)
Optional Link URL:
Optional Link Title:
Optional Image URL:
Upload Image:
E-mail Replies:  Automagically notify you when someone responds.

[ Top Top of Page ] [ Contact Us ] [ Support/Wish List ] [ Copyright © 2025, Audio Asylum, all rights reserved ]
[ General ] [ Speakers ] [ Tubes ] [ Vinyl ] [ Digital ] [ Hi-Rez ] [ Video Asylum ] [ Cables ] [ Tweaks/DIY ] [ Music ] [ Films ]